*sigh*
First of all, where and when did Sarah Palin say this? I cannot find it anywhere.
I would never want Sarah Palin to be President, and I voted for neither McCain, nor Obama in the last election (there was a pretty classic thread here about the election, if I remember correctly).
Palin is now a "pundit" for Fox, much in the same way that Olbermann is one for MSNBC. Let's not forget worse, including on Olbermann's show, has been said on both sides--even if I can't find a source for this quote.
To use the Bush administration as an example of how "less" government was a disaster is--and I'm sorry, Scott--ridiculous.
Bush created an entirely new bureaucracy with the Department of Homeland Security. Federal regulations failed us in every single way on September 11th (even down to freaking Mohammed Atta's visa was approved 6 months after he died!), yet the Transportation Security Administration federalized transportation security.
No Child Left Behind federalized education to a point never seen before, and despite the fact that we now (over)spend over $11,000 per child per classroom per year, public education is the same disaster it always was with low scores and low-paid teachers. All this, of course, occurs while private school tuition averages less than half of what the government spends on a public school child, and the private school students are more successful.
The Medicare drug benefit was the largest entitlement in 40 years, and financial institutions and car companies were bailed out in an unprecedented involvement by the feds in the free market.
The federal budget increased by $350 billion in Bush's first term, far ahead of almost any other President as of 2009. The only other administration that comes close as of 2009 is....Bush's second term where another $300 billion was added to the budget.
Regulation, contrary to popular belief, ballooned under Bush as well. Bush spent more tax payer money, adjusted for inflation, on new, and enforcement of, regulations than any President in US history. Bush's 2 terms increased this by a whopping 62%. By contrast, Clinton increased this in his two terms by 31%. Bush added--just in 2001--over 65,000 pages of regulation. That number hit 80,000 by 2008, a record. Of course, to regulate that much takes more bodies, so Bush actually added, in his 2 terms, almost 100,000 people to the government payroll. In contrast, Clinton cut employees by 1000.
Bush in no way was a disaster of less government. Government grew under him in unprecedented ways. While both parties are going to spend us and entitle us into oblivion, at least the Democrats are up front about taking from the rich and giving to the poor. The Republicans just lie about it.
Smaller government has not existed for sometime, federally. It did not exist under Bush, and it sure as hell does not exist under Obama. The national debt is currently $12,672,019,000,000 and increases by $1 million every minute.
If Bush was our problem, what's going on now is no answer.
